Huggabuggaa!

Good morning out of the box thinkers and future Huggabuggans. Today I will tell you the story of how I learned about the launch cycle, created something that’s never been before, but most importantly, created your new favourite sport!

L. A. U. N. C. H. Cycle

The launch cycle was originally used in major companies, in a time that they called Blue sky time, or 15% time. This is a time that employees get 15% or more of their work day to work on anything that they want, and feel like would contribute to the company. A lot of Apple’s products, and Googles ideas came from this time. These include the IPad, the Post it Note, masking tape, and much more crucial parts of our day to day lives. This would not be possible without 15% time, but that’s not all It does for these companies. Not only are the employees happy, they get to sell these new inventions, it attracts future employees, and warms the eyes and hearts of potential buyers to see such care towards their workers.

In the PLP program, our teachers knew how affective this is in major companies, and decided to add it to our curriculum in Maker class. After all, that is the class where we’re supposed to MAKE stuff!

The launch cycle is something that is used in 15% Time, or Blue Sky time often. It helps organize the process of seeing a problem, brainstorming, creating, critiquing, and finalizing. Not that anything is truly ever finished. The steps are as follows in the subtitles below, each letter representing a stage of this process. L. A. U. N. C. H.

Look, Listen, Learn

This is where you look at the world around you, through different lenses. Some think to think outside of the box, but in reality you should just think ABOUT the box a little differently.

For this step we looked at other already existing sports, and found everything that made them either fun or boring or what could be improved. We made lists, and thought about all of the favourite sports and why they are so well loved.

Ask a LOT of Questions

In order to think about the box differently, it always helps to have questions or different consepions in your mind. The more questions you ask, the more questions you will think of, and all the more creative your concept will become.

Some of our questions included: – What makes a good sport? – what are people’s favourite types of sports? – how difficult should we make our sport? – do people prefer multiple team, individual, one on one, or singular team sports? -How athletic are the population in general? – What defines a sport?

Understand the Problem

This is where you get to better understand what it is that you are thinking about. How might one do this? You may ask, the answer is a lot of research!

We researched even more sports, and articles about them. We then created a PROs and CONs list about all of the attributes to each sport.

Navigate Ideas

Though it’s called navigating your ideas, you could just think about it as brainstorming and creating a plan. First you barf all of your ideas onto a page without any filter of good, bad, stupid, smart, successful, future fail. Then you process each idea, and further indulge your brain in them. When you’ve finally finished the processing process, you will narrow down your options and cultivate a plan.

We took all of our research, and tried to create a sport with the plusses of each sport. We barfed our thoughts onto the page, processed them, and finally found our idea to stick to.

Create a Prototype

Now that you have a plan, act upon it! What use is a plan without execution? Just start building, creating rules and regulations, crafting the equipment, and whatever else needs doing. Just start building!

we created a beautiful sport called huggabugga, we created how to play, the rules, and all of the team specifications. Want to learn how to play? -just watch our movie.

Highlight and Fix

Testing time! Who doesn’t love a good test run? Try out whatever you are creating, and use the results to help you better your product. In PLP, we give each other quite a bit of kind, helpful, and specific feedback to help each other and ourselves out in every way possible. For us, and for me, good enough is not good enough. I believe that everything (and everyone for that matter) is a work in progress, and can always be improved nothing is truly ever finished.

We realized some things about our sport that made it too difficult to play, or too tiring. Nobody wanted to play a seemingly impossible game. We twisted some of the rules, and added a whole lot more so that it becomes a bit more restricted and less intimidating.

LAUNCH to the World!

With your help, we can make Huggabugga the most enjoyed sport in the country, the continent, or maybe even the world! Tell your friends and send this article too, go try it out and tell me what you think in the comments below.

Used the launch process for a project of your own and want it to be Launched? Simply click on this link and create a kickstarter account (not a sponsor) or tell me in the comments, I’ll even include an add for it in my future posts. Advocate for your self, and be your own inspiration for change!